Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help prevent children being (a) exploited, (b) recruited into criminal organisations and (c) involved in knife crime in the West Midlands.

This Government is determined to crack down on knife crime and the criminal gangs who are exploiting our children and have a devastating impact on our communities.

That is why we are investing in a number of programmes to respond to child exploitation including the Prevention Programme, delivered by The Children’s Society, who work with partners across sectors to tackle and prevent a range of exploitation types.

In addition, we are investing up to £145m over three years in our County Lines Programme which provides funding for targeted operational activity in the four largest exporting force areas including West Midlands Police. We are also investing in dedicated specialist support provided by Catch-22 to help those who are criminally exploited through county lines to safely reduce and exit their involvement. Since the County Lines Programme was launched in 2019, police activity has resulted in over 4,700 lines closed, over 14,800 arrests and over 7,200 safeguarding referrals.

The Government is also committed to ensuring that the police have the tools and powers they need to tackle the scourge of knife crime on our streets. We are currently piloting Serious Violence Reduction Orders in the West Midlands which give the police more powers to stop and search convicted knife offenders. We also plan to legislate on banning zombie-style machetes and knives that have no practical use, more powers for police to seize knives that could be used in crimes, and a new offence and higher sentencing to those who sell and possess these dangerous weapons.

Since 2019, West Midlands Police have received over £20m of funding for a Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) (including £4.38m this year) and £19m (including £3.4m this year) for the Grip programme. Collectively, these programmes are providing a multi-agency preventative response designed to tackle the drivers of violence, alongside additional, high visibility patrols and problem-solving tactics in the areas worst affected.